Hey guys! Krayfishkarl here and welcome to another Droplet: States of Matter update! Early access 1.20 is now available! This update replaces the Redwood Climb level with a brand new one: Misty Canopies, a level themed after a haunted forest. You’ll travel across a fungus-covered treehouse village where more than a few ghoulish enemies take up residence.
As mentioned in my previous update, with the majority of areas having been converted from BSP brush to static mesh, I’ve been going back through the game to rebalance level progression to improve pacing. The new Misty Canopies level features freezable moisture as its central mechanic. While freezable moisture exists in other levels, I decided it was necessary to have an level that was more focused on how it could be presented in complex ways.
As Misty Canopies turned out to be a very difficult level, I decided to have it take place later in the game while reorganizing other levels across the different hub areas. As I go back and rebalance the level progression further, I may do similar reorderings to better ensure an optimal player experience.
In other news, the Industrial Junkyard level now features a new music track. The previous song for the level is now being used for the Radon Industries hub world. During the process of rebalancing player progression, I’m going back and updating older music tracks to ensure consistent quality across the game.
That’s all for now! And with that, thank you for following the development of Droplet: States of Matter!
Patch Notes
Bug Fixes
- Fixed some collision issues with the ice platforms created when freezing a surface.
- Correct message about time trial completion now plays.
- Fixed an area where you could get trapped in Cretaceous Caldera.
Gameplay
- Redwood Climb redesigned as a new level: Misty Canopies which is now found in the Krypton Estate hub world
- Swapped several levels around different hub worlds to balance the game’s difficulty better. You’ll still retain progress in these levels if they were moved to a hub world you don’t have access to yet.
- Toxic Bog to Neon Badlands
- Arctic Rig to Xenon Lagoon
- Abyssal Fissure to Radon Industries
- Lucky Cyberpunk to Krypton Estate
- Cirrus Harbor to Radon Industries
- Increased the maximum distance you can shoot a projectile.
- Frozen surfaces now have a slightly slower melting animation to provide more telegraphing when it will disappear.
- Detonation times for exploder robots are now much longer to give first-time players more reaction time.
- Ghost enemies now respawn if you fall into a hazard to mitigate them getting stuck in an unreachable area.
- Some jumps in Industrial Junkyard are now a little more forgiving.
Graphics
- Enemies now flash a different color when you successfully damage them.
- Recolors of the toxic in Toxic Bog and Haunted Shipyard. This was to better communicate that green toxic (found in levels such as Industrial Junkyard and Radiant Reactor) will change to plasma form.
- Graphical update to freezable moisture.
- Graphical improvements to Industrial Junkyard.
- Recolored Abyssal Fissure so that it’s easier to tell apart the mud.
Audio
- New music for Industrial Junkyard. The previous theme is now that of Radon Industries.
- Added attenuation to various sound effects.